Ifitness Scam

[craig-74]

Hello.  I am a Samsung user and have been scammed by Ifitness.  I never signed up to them, they have been taking £3 a week from my bill since 03/04/2017.  On 18th April I asked Vodafone to cancel this as I had no APP or agreement with Ifitness, to which they said they had done, but havent!!!  I have asked for my money back and they are refusing to refund.  I have text back STOP every month too but still being charged.  Vodafone have referred me to an O2 Forum for advice (???)  and a link which confirms its a scam linked to google play pedometer.   Does anyone know how I go about complaining and getting my money back.  I am livid with the performance of Vodafone.  I have been a Customer for over 10 years !!

[bunch7]

Hi,

im coming to this same problem in March 2020 and this thread goes back years - i cant believe that no one has put a stop to this fraud or made a concise way of terminating the payments and getting compensated for the money taken. Isn't there an effective regulator?

[sylvannia]

Same here but 12.00 per month taken and I cannot even get on the internet and no i phone to use! Fed up with people who scam off others.  Vodafone tried to help but they cannot do anything about it we have to contact the ifitness or payplus first to sort it out and try and get refund. 

[sylvannia]

Ripped me off too.  No refund on the money they have scammed from me.  I will not be renewing my vodafone contract as never had this happen with other suppliers.  My bill is constantly over what it should be and I am fed up with phoning them.  They said not their fault!!!!!!!!!!!  I had to try and get in touch myself with ifitness at my cost even though not my fault.  Then had to go through another agency to log the complaint.  Still now waiting for all the extra charges they have allowed to be made on my phone number must be about £50 now!!!! Vodafone is absolute rubbish and I am looking for another provider or even Giff Gaff as they have a good rep and cannot scam me and my own phone.  Contracts are a rip off they take your money and allow anybody to link to the number then charge you for unauthorised charges.     Very Very Very disillusioned by vodafone.  

[jeffkinn]

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@sylvannia wrote:

 Vodafone is absolute rubbish and I am looking for another provider or even Giff Gaff as they have a good rep and cannot scam me and my own phone.  Contracts are a rip off they take your money and allow anybody to link to the number then charge you for unauthorised charges.     Very Very Very disillusioned by vodafone.  

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Perhaps you should look at the Giffgaf community where there are threads about the very same thing

[muggles708]

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@jeffkinn wrote:

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@sylvannia wrote:

 Vodafone is absolute rubbish and I am looking for another provider or even Giff Gaff as they have a good rep and cannot scam me and my own phone.  Contracts are a rip off they take your money and allow anybody to link to the number then charge you for unauthorised charges.     Very Very Very disillusioned by vodafone.  

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Perhaps you should look at the Giffgaf community where there are threads about the very same thing

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Very True. These scams affect all of the UK networks, and most of them are very unhelpful when customers are the victim of one of these scams.

GiffGaff, in common with O2 are unable to apply a 'charge to bill' bar on your account, which means they are unable to offer you any protection. As far as I know Vodafone do offer this protection.

If you use GiffGaff you would need to operate with a zero balance and just buy packages of minutes, SMS and data. That will only work if you never make chargeable calls.

https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Help-Support/Secret-sales-codes/m-p/21309295#M7825924

Paul

[martyn142]

Some good news at last

It took me a while but I've now had a full refund of all my charges - £72 in total. I'm going to risk boring you by detailing the history of the complaint, in case anyone wants to do the same.

1. Emailed iFitness asking for a full frefund since I had never signed up for iFitness. I've tried to include the email address in this post but it's not allowed apparently? Cheers Vodafone.

2. iFitness reply informing me that I had subscribed on 18 June 2017 and that I had unsubscribed on 26 Jan 2018 (the day of the email reply). Attached screenshots of a large green "Subscribe Now" button and "Confirm" button which I had supposedly both clicked.

3. Emailed that a. I had never even seen those buttons, b. the only contact I had had was to text STOP to an unsolicited text at some point and c. I had "unsubscribed" via their website (and had a screenshot) on 28 Dec 2017. Said I would be taking my coimplaint to the PPSA.

4. iFitness replied repeating that I had indeed subcribed as they had described but that they would be willing to offer a good-will gesture of £30.

5. Replied that I would not accept the good-will offer but would be taking the case to the PPSA.

6. iFitness replied repeating what they had said before and making a "full and final" offer of £30.

7. Emailed repeating that I would not accept their offer and would pursue my complaint with the PPSA.

8. iFitness replied offering a full refund of £72, which I accepted.

Payment was made by a text message from the Post Office which I showed to the counter staff and got my £72 in cash. 

So don't give up and don't be fobbed off with a partial refund. This was done with no help from Vodafone.

[muggles708]

Well done for holding out for a full refund and getting it. These rip-off companies rely on consumers giving up and allowing them to keep the stolen money.

You should lodge a complaint with the PSA anyway. Signing you up for their service without your consent is a breach of the Code of Conduct, and renders them liable for a fine of up to £250,000. Many consumers don't realise this and fail to lodge a complaint, allowing these scams to continue far longer than they ought to.

These fraudulent 'subscription services' are a disgrace to the mobile communications industry.

Well done again and thanks for posting your experiences.

Paul

payforitsucks.co.uk

[DaneB]

Hi @martyn142, thanks for letting us know and i'm delighted to hear you've now received your refund.

Apologies for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

[DUNCANCOLLINS]

I've just been done for £15 which apparently will be refunded by a PO text in 14 days time which I will have to produce at a PO counter (nearest one miles away - they are all closing). Murs (surname refused) on [Removed] at ifitness [Removed] explained I must have accidentally clicked on a popup ad. I didn't and I also clicked STOP the day I got the text. But they charged for 5 weeks before stopping. Vodafone have blocked their future access to my account and tell me they have reported this lot as it's driving them nuts and also all the other mobile providers. 

[MOD EDIT: This post has been edited to remove personal information - please see Community Guidelines]

[hrym]

That's good to hear.   It does look very much as though this is an outfit that's misusing a legitimate payment channel.  I never respond to unsolicited texts myself as they're often send to random numbers and all interacting does is confirm that yours is a live one.   And, as you've found, although replying STOP (or STOP ALL) should put and end to things, it doesn't always.

The company does seem to be refunding, which is something and suggests they're not completely dodgy (the real scammers don't even respond), but their business model certainly seems suspect.   No one should be signed up just through a pop-up - and, on a phone, it can be very difficult to close those without interacting in a way they interpret as positive.

It's also good to know that Vodafone can block access.